Now, before you start rolling your eyes, hear me out. We had no air conditioning in south Florida. The school I attended had 10 foot ceilings, giant windows across the entire wall, and transoms over the door. Still didn't help. The fans just moved the hot air around a little.
When I began third grade, I discovered that we were going to have class in something called a PORTABLE. It was a classroom on wheels. We were excited. The room was so dark with the shades pulled that we could actually make out the images on the screen from the filmstrip (remember those?). We had bright orange plastic chairs instead of the heavy wooden ones. The BEST part, however, was the...window air conditioner!
Yes, yes, yes! No more arms sticking to the worksheet when you stopped writing. No more leg skin being ripped off when you got out of your seat. No more head trauma when your elbow slid off the table when you tried to balance your head on your hand. (Long story.) It was fabulous. It was stupendous. It was comfortable. I settled in to watch the food chain shining on the screen in front of me and listened to the hum of luxury.
For two whole weeks.
Two weeks. Evidently the Powers-That-Be thought that the kindergartners needed to be in the portable. I was devastated. What did those five-year-olds know about climate control? Had they spent years looking at a chalkboard through a haze? Did they understand about having to pry their workbooks apart with the edge of their rulers? Could THEY appreciate the ecstasy that was low-humidity? I didn't think so.
But the PTB did. We packed up our books and filed slowly out of the arctic and went directly to the tropics. I didn't get to enjoy air conditioning again until high school. I know. I've suffered.
Well, J and I have recently "changed classrooms." We started school in the basement. (See pictures HERE.) I found that I needed many things that were on the first floor. My printer. The telephone. The dryer. The stove. Besides, my backside was begging me to do away with the "little chair."
I went to work on my office and created an area for homeschool. It's small, but it works. Below is J's area. The wall pockets above his desk are scrap paper and his own projects-in-progress. The small table chalkboard to the left gets used repeatedly. The drawers on his desk hold his writing accoutrements.
My area is directly to the right. On the wall I have a pocket that holds my planning book, the worksheets he will be doing that week and the worksheets he has completed. They will get sorted into notebooks filed by subject. On my desk is my favorite appliance in the whole house. The computer. I'd give up the dishwasher before I'd give up the computer.
To the right of my desk (not pictured) are the printer and the small box that holds our schoolbooks. Everything is at my fingertips. I love it. I also love the padded full-size chair.
In the next room I have a double bookcase that holds any book that could have anything to do with homeschooling. On two of the shelves are the books I've pulled out that would be useful for what we're studying this year. I look through those at the beginning of each month to see if there is something that could be incorporated.
The only other school related items not pictured are the drums and piano (in the basement) and the encyclopedias (on another shelf in the next room.) Very compact. Now that we're upstairs, it's also very convenient. We do art projects in the living room, watch videos on the TV in the other room and go to the library a lot. It's not complicated.
Oh--and in the summer? We have air conditioning because I'm the one who gets to decide who gets what classroom now!
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